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pameladeanHere are links to Part 1 and Part 2.
I'd apologize for the delay in writing Part 3 -- we had a catfood emergency -- but, after all, it's not as if you didn't know how the play ended.
If you don't, you should probably stop reading right now.
Ophelia's two mad scenes were heartbreaking. Eric remarked to me afterwards that a lot of the character reading depends on how the mask comes off. It's hard to describe why this scene worked so well. The props helped. She had not flowers, but a collection of toys and letters -- a teddy bear, some paper dolls, and the same letter tied with red ribbon that she had had when last her family was all together, and like those she had tried to return to Hamlet in the nunnery scene. She was both lost and purposeful, distraught and angry at once. The actor was very small and had been all along very precise in her dress, movements, and speech, even when she was affrighted; maybe that contrast was what really brought the situation home. When she exits the second time, Gertrude, a tall and elegant woman in some kind of formal dress, is left slumped in a chair clutching a teddy bear with a red ribbon around its neck. One remembered that late when she came to tell of Ophelia's death.
Claudius's speech about how when sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions, seemed to me to be the last sane remarks he uttered. It's odd that I should find the break here, when he has already engineered Hamlet's death in England. Maybe it's because he is about to engineer it at home, where he can see the result. I'm not sure.
Laertes's entrance didn't work for me. I think they cut too much.
Horatio did the best he could with Hamlet's letter, given that so much of the context had been cut earlier and that the letter was cut also. I admired how much of the plot was retained and how clear it seemed for the most part, but a skeleton without a heart is not a very appealing structure, on the whole. Please do not dwell on that metaphor.
The fantastical scene wherein Claudius and Laertes plot Hamlet's death, several times over, by means that are not undetectable, was very creepy; it is possible that Laertes seemed so shallow and shadowy in order to point up his manipulation at the hands of Claudius, but really I like the whole thing better when Ophelia's "Pray you, love, remember" echoes the Ghost's remark to Hamlet, and when "I dare damnation!" stands in stark contrast to all Hamlet's contemplation. Claudius was impressive, though, despite the cuts.
The gravedigging scene was not cut as it usually is, with the Other Clown removed and the scene beginning with the remaining Gravedigger singing, "In youth when I did love, did love." The Other Clown got to do his clowning, and the scene was very funny, and in fact a considerable relief after all the horror. However, Hamlet and Horatio's conversation with one another and their dialog with the Gravedigger was severely truncated. Horatio actually gets to be a little witty in the text, but here he was mostly dumb. Yorick was there, but that bit was also cut, and things did not flow very well as a result. Hamlet's announcement of his presence at the funeral was oddly flat, though this may have been a result of where we were sitting -- Hamlet and Horatio were quite far from us and we couldn't see any fine detail of reaction.
Hamlet and Horatio's following conversation about what happened on the pirate ship, and the fate of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, was also trimmed, and as usual I thought they went too far. And "Wby, man, they did make love to this employment," of course, flat contradicted the entire presentation of R and G throughout; the single piece of evidence that Hamlet had was that they had been sent for, and the whole slant of their characterization made one wonder why he had not inquired further about exactly what was going on with them. I couldn't quite get the scene to sit well, because Hamlet was mostly a sympathetic character. A lot of what they cut was some of his more unsavory musings, so his wit seems less diseased. This ended up making him seem, by this point, more cruel than the whole text does: the saner he is, the less excuse he has; and the less sick the court, the less excuse he has. I don't altogether feel that this was a flaw in the production, but more that the permanent puzzlement of Hamlet's condition and character was located in a slightly different place.
The scene with Osric, which once again allows, in the text, some actual contribution by Horatio and, one assumes, a pale shadow of his and Hamlet's attitude towards one another when things are not completely awry, was ruthlessly cut until there was no actual point in having Osric be dressed flamboyantly or to act that way; there was no background left for it.
The duel was pretty fast and scary. One lovely touch was that, after Gertrude drank the poisoned cup, Claudius crossed to the other side of the steps where she was standing, and just stood beside her and put his arm around her waist, like any fond husband. One marvelled at his self-control and at his thinking of her as well, which few Claudiuses do at this point in quite that way. They tend to stay put, apparently bent on self-preservation.
They cut Hamlet's last few speeches down, to no particular good effect.
The Ambassador from England turned out to be Isabel Monk, another old-time Guthrie regular, resplendent in what looked like an entire ensemble of camel's hair, with a remarkable hat. I was very glad to see her.
Fortinbras did not say that four soldiers should bear Hamlet's body to the stage, nor that he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royal. The play ended with the still-living members of the court chorusing, "Long live the King! Long live the King!"
It was better than ending on "The rest is silence." But that's really all that I can say in its favor.
I feel that I should add that, despite all these grouses, I very much enjoyed the performance, admired many more aspects of it than I have managed to remember here, and was extremely impressed with the level of acting and also on the whole, though not entirely, with the intelligence of the cuts, though I still think they were a bad idea, and am sorry for the reduction of the character of Horatio in particular.
P.
.
I'd apologize for the delay in writing Part 3 -- we had a catfood emergency -- but, after all, it's not as if you didn't know how the play ended.
If you don't, you should probably stop reading right now.
Ophelia's two mad scenes were heartbreaking. Eric remarked to me afterwards that a lot of the character reading depends on how the mask comes off. It's hard to describe why this scene worked so well. The props helped. She had not flowers, but a collection of toys and letters -- a teddy bear, some paper dolls, and the same letter tied with red ribbon that she had had when last her family was all together, and like those she had tried to return to Hamlet in the nunnery scene. She was both lost and purposeful, distraught and angry at once. The actor was very small and had been all along very precise in her dress, movements, and speech, even when she was affrighted; maybe that contrast was what really brought the situation home. When she exits the second time, Gertrude, a tall and elegant woman in some kind of formal dress, is left slumped in a chair clutching a teddy bear with a red ribbon around its neck. One remembered that late when she came to tell of Ophelia's death.
Claudius's speech about how when sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions, seemed to me to be the last sane remarks he uttered. It's odd that I should find the break here, when he has already engineered Hamlet's death in England. Maybe it's because he is about to engineer it at home, where he can see the result. I'm not sure.
Laertes's entrance didn't work for me. I think they cut too much.
Horatio did the best he could with Hamlet's letter, given that so much of the context had been cut earlier and that the letter was cut also. I admired how much of the plot was retained and how clear it seemed for the most part, but a skeleton without a heart is not a very appealing structure, on the whole. Please do not dwell on that metaphor.
The fantastical scene wherein Claudius and Laertes plot Hamlet's death, several times over, by means that are not undetectable, was very creepy; it is possible that Laertes seemed so shallow and shadowy in order to point up his manipulation at the hands of Claudius, but really I like the whole thing better when Ophelia's "Pray you, love, remember" echoes the Ghost's remark to Hamlet, and when "I dare damnation!" stands in stark contrast to all Hamlet's contemplation. Claudius was impressive, though, despite the cuts.
The gravedigging scene was not cut as it usually is, with the Other Clown removed and the scene beginning with the remaining Gravedigger singing, "In youth when I did love, did love." The Other Clown got to do his clowning, and the scene was very funny, and in fact a considerable relief after all the horror. However, Hamlet and Horatio's conversation with one another and their dialog with the Gravedigger was severely truncated. Horatio actually gets to be a little witty in the text, but here he was mostly dumb. Yorick was there, but that bit was also cut, and things did not flow very well as a result. Hamlet's announcement of his presence at the funeral was oddly flat, though this may have been a result of where we were sitting -- Hamlet and Horatio were quite far from us and we couldn't see any fine detail of reaction.
Hamlet and Horatio's following conversation about what happened on the pirate ship, and the fate of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, was also trimmed, and as usual I thought they went too far. And "Wby, man, they did make love to this employment," of course, flat contradicted the entire presentation of R and G throughout; the single piece of evidence that Hamlet had was that they had been sent for, and the whole slant of their characterization made one wonder why he had not inquired further about exactly what was going on with them. I couldn't quite get the scene to sit well, because Hamlet was mostly a sympathetic character. A lot of what they cut was some of his more unsavory musings, so his wit seems less diseased. This ended up making him seem, by this point, more cruel than the whole text does: the saner he is, the less excuse he has; and the less sick the court, the less excuse he has. I don't altogether feel that this was a flaw in the production, but more that the permanent puzzlement of Hamlet's condition and character was located in a slightly different place.
The scene with Osric, which once again allows, in the text, some actual contribution by Horatio and, one assumes, a pale shadow of his and Hamlet's attitude towards one another when things are not completely awry, was ruthlessly cut until there was no actual point in having Osric be dressed flamboyantly or to act that way; there was no background left for it.
The duel was pretty fast and scary. One lovely touch was that, after Gertrude drank the poisoned cup, Claudius crossed to the other side of the steps where she was standing, and just stood beside her and put his arm around her waist, like any fond husband. One marvelled at his self-control and at his thinking of her as well, which few Claudiuses do at this point in quite that way. They tend to stay put, apparently bent on self-preservation.
They cut Hamlet's last few speeches down, to no particular good effect.
The Ambassador from England turned out to be Isabel Monk, another old-time Guthrie regular, resplendent in what looked like an entire ensemble of camel's hair, with a remarkable hat. I was very glad to see her.
Fortinbras did not say that four soldiers should bear Hamlet's body to the stage, nor that he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royal. The play ended with the still-living members of the court chorusing, "Long live the King! Long live the King!"
It was better than ending on "The rest is silence." But that's really all that I can say in its favor.
I feel that I should add that, despite all these grouses, I very much enjoyed the performance, admired many more aspects of it than I have managed to remember here, and was extremely impressed with the level of acting and also on the whole, though not entirely, with the intelligence of the cuts, though I still think they were a bad idea, and am sorry for the reduction of the character of Horatio in particular.
P.
.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 06:22 am (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 06:21 am (UTC)But I'm glad you like both kinds.
P.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 07:57 am (UTC)I like that Ophelia had toys and letters instead of flowers, that's a nice idea.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 07:23 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 09:53 pm (UTC)The clothes for the paper dolls, btw, are folk costumes from Denmark and Ireland...hee hee...
no subject
Date: 2006-04-29 04:44 am (UTC)I love that story; if only I had noticed Gertrude's flowers.
As for the paper-doll costumes, hee hee indeed.
P.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 01:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 07:22 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 05:33 pm (UTC)That came through clearly for me. I also very much enjoyed these posts. I've been making a point to come and check in for Parts 2 and 3 since you started them.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-29 08:04 am (UTC)All the best, and thanks.
Lisa
no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 02:09 pm (UTC)I was very happy to see the Other Clown, but I would have traded him away to see poor Horatio have a few more lines to flesh out his character. I thought the actor who played him did a marvelous job with what he had. Both of us felt that the ending was rushed. One day, when I stage Hamlet, Gertrude will have that moment where she realizes Hamlet was right all along.
Ophelia dropping the items into Gertrude's lap the way she did was particularly effective for me.